Japan's Gift of 80 Cherry Trees To Gunnersbury Park To Be Celebrated
Event being held following planting of Cherry Tree Grove
Volunteers planting the cherry trees in Gunnersbury Park
A special ceremony is to be held in Gunnersbury Park this Friday (18 March) to celebrate the Cherry Tree Grove which was made possible by the gift of 80 trees from Japan.
Attending will be the Sakura Project Team, a Japanese Embassy Minister, the Deputy Lieutenant for Hounslow, local dignitaries and representatives of the local community. The event will provide an opportunity to thank the numerous Gunnersbury volunteers and Capel Manor College horticultural students who planted the trees in November 2021.
Although April is traditionally known as Sakura month, warmer weather has meant that cherry trees are tending to blossom earlier.
The Gunnersbury planting was initiated by Michael Rowan, one of the trustees of the Gunnersbury Museum & Park Development Trust who had heard about the Sakura UK Project and thought it offered an opportunity for Gunnersbury. A longstanding aim has been to revitalise an area of the Park planted in 1900-1 as an Anglo-Japanese Garden by Leopold de Rothschild and his skilled gardener, James Hudson, before the estate became a public park. The new trees are just a few minutes' stroll away from this site.
The 80 trees planted at Gunnersbury are just a few of the 6,500 Japanese cherry trees –'Sakura' in Japanese – given to the UK by Japan. They have been distributed to over 400 schools and 160 gardens and parks (including several of London's biggest parks) across the UK.
The planting of the cherry trees will leave a legacy from the Japan-UK Season of Culture 2019-2020, which celebrated Japan’s relationship with the UK. The Season provided the opportunity to learn more about Japan, its culture and its people through hundreds of events ranging from arts, sports, cuisine and performance.
Though the Season ended in 2020, and events were disrupted by the pandemic, Gunnersbury was able to complete its planting in 2021. The event is one of the last Sakura Project celebrations.
Howard Simmons, the Trust's Chairman, said, "Our trustees were thrilled to discover that Sakura were prepared to donate trees to Gunnersbury. We hope that many local residents will now come to the Park every spring to see the exceptionally pretty spectacle of the cherry trees in blossom."
David Bowler, Chief Executive Officer, Gunnersbury CIC, said,“We’re delighted to have been given the cherry trees by Sakura UK – they are a wonderful addition to the park landscape. We’d like to thank the Gunnersbury Museum & Park Development Trust for securing the trees and the huge number of volunteers and students who worked with our garden team to undertake the ambitious process of planting them all".
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